Active as love was in the heart of Maria, the story she had just heard
made her thoughts take a wider range. The opening buds of hope closed,
as if they had put forth too early, and the the happiest day of her
life was overcast by the most melancholy reflections. Thinking of
Jemima’s peculiar fate and her own, she was led to consider the
oppressed state of women, and to lament that she had given birth to a
daughter. Sleep fled from her eyelids, while she dwelt on the
wretchedness of unprotected infancy, till sympathy with Jemima changed
to agony, when it seemed probable that her own babe might even now be
in the very state she so forcibly described.
Maria thought, and thought again. Jemima’s humanity had rather been
benumbed than killed, by the keen frost she had to brave at her
entrance into life; an appeal then to her feelings, on this tender
point, surely would not be fruitless; and Maria began to anticipate the
delight it would afford her to gain intelligence of her child. This
project was now the only subject of reflection; and she watched
impatiently for the dawn of day, with that determinate purpose which
generally insures success.
At the usual hour, Jemima brought her breakfast, and a tender note from
Darnford. She ran her eye hastily over it, and her heart calmly hoarded
up the rapture a fresh assurance of affection, affection such as she
wished to inspire, gave her, without diverting her mind a moment from
its design. While Jemima waited to take away the breakfast, Maria
alluded to the reflections, that had haunted her during the night to
the exclusion of sleep. She spoke with energy of Jemima’s unmerited
sufferings, and of the fate of a number of deserted females, placed
within the sweep of a whirlwind, from which it was next to impossible
to escape. Perceiving the effect her conversation produced on the
countenance of her guard, she grasped the arm of Jemima with that
irresistible warmth which defies repulse, exclaiming—“With your heart,
and such dreadful experience, can you lend your aid to deprive my babe
of a mother’s tenderness, a mother’s care? In the name of God, assist
me to snatch her from destruction! Let me but give her an education—let
me but prepare her body and mind to encounter the ills which await her
sex, and I will teach her to consider you as her second mother, and
herself as the prop of your age. Yes, Jemima, look at me—observe me
closely, and read my very soul; you merit a better fate;” she held out
her hand with a firm gesture of assurance; “and I will procure it for
you, as a testimony of my esteem, as well as of my gratitude.”
Jemima had not power to resist this persuasive torrent; and, owning
that the house in which she was confined, was situated on the banks of
the Thames, only a few miles from London, and not on the sea-coast, as
Darnford had supposed, she promised to invent some excuse for her
absence, and go herself to trace the situation, and enquire concerning
the health, of this abandoned daughter. Her manner implied an intention
to do something more, but she seemed unwilling to impart her design;
and Maria, glad to have obtained the main point, thought it best to
leave her to the workings of her own mind; convinced that she had the
power of interesting her still more in favour of herself and child, by
a simple recital of facts.
In the evening, Jemima informed the impatient mother, that on the
morrow she should hasten to town before the family hour of rising, and
received all the information necessary, as a clue to her search. The
“Good night!” Maria uttered was peculiarly solemn and affectionate.
Glad expectation sparkled in her eye; and, for the first time since her
detention, she pronounced the name of her child with pleasureable
fondness; and, with all the garrulity of a nurse, described her first
smile when she recognized her mother. Recollecting herself, a still
kinder “Adieu!” with a “God bless you!”—that seemed to include a
maternal benediction, dismissed Jemima.
The dreary solitude of the ensuing day, lengthened by impatiently
dwelling on the same idea, was intolerably wearisome. She listened for
the sound of a particular clock, which some directions of the wind
allowed her to hear distinctly. She marked the shadow gaining on the
wall; and, twilight thickening into darkness, her breath seemed
oppressed while she anxiously counted nine.—The last sound was a stroke
of despair on her heart; for she expected every moment, without seeing
Jemima, to have her light extinguished by the savage female who
supplied her place. She was even obliged to prepare for bed, restless
as she was, not to disoblige her new attendant. She had been cautioned
not to speak too freely to her; but the caution was needless, her
countenance would still more emphatically have made her shrink back.
Such was the ferocity of manner, conspicuous in every word and gesture
of this hag, that Maria was afraid to enquire, why Jemima, who had
faithfully promised to see her before her door was shut for the night,
came not?—and, when the key turned in the lock, to consign her to a
night of suspence, she felt a degree of anguish which the circumstances
scarcely justified.
Continually on the watch, the shutting of a door, or the sound of a
foot-step, made her start and tremble with apprehension, something like
what she felt, when, at her entrance, dragged along the gallery, she
began to doubt whether she were not surrounded by demons?
Fatigued by an endless rotation of thought and wild alarms, she looked
like a spectre, when Jemima entered in the morning; especially as her
eyes darted out of her head, to read in Jemima’s countenance, almost as
pallid, the intelligence she dared not trust her tongue to demand.
Jemima put down the tea-things, and appeared very busy in arranging the
table. Maria took up a cup with trembling hand, then forcibly
recovering her fortitude, and restraining the convulsive movement which
agitated the muscles of her mouth, she said, “Spare yourself the pain
of preparing me for your information, I adjure you!—My child is dead!”
Jemima solemnly answered, “Yes;” with a look expressive of compassion
and angry emotions. “Leave me,” added Maria, making a fresh effort to
govern her feelings, and hiding her face in her handkerchief, to
conceal her anguish—“It is enough—I know that my babe is no more—I will
hear the particulars when I am”—calmer, she could not utter; and
Jemima, without importuning her by idle attempts to console her, left
the room.
Plunged in the deepest melancholy, she would not admit Darnford’s
visits; and such is the force of early associations even on strong
minds, that, for a while, she indulged the superstitious notion that
she was justly punished by the death of her child, for having for an
instant ceased to regret her loss. Two or three letters from Darnford,
full of soothing, manly tenderness, only added poignancy to these
accusing emotions; yet the passionate style in which he expressed, what
he termed the first and fondest wish of his heart, “that his affection
might make her some amends for the cruelty and injustice she had
endured,” inspired a sentiment of gratitude to heaven; and her eyes
filled with delicious tears, when, at the conclusion of his letter,
wishing to supply the place of her unworthy relations, whose want of
principle he execrated, he assured her, calling her his dearest girl,
“that it should henceforth be the business of his life to make her
happy.”
He begged, in a note sent the following morning, to be permitted to see
her, when his presence would be no intrusion on her grief, and so
earnestly intreated to be allowed, according to promise, to beguile the
tedious moments of absence, by dwelling on the events of her past life,
that she sent him the memoirs which had been written for her daughter,
promising Jemima the perusal as soon as he returned them.